


Posed to Death

by exterminatecake



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Gen, really giant games of chess and god tier shit, uUcest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-20 19:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exterminatecake/pseuds/exterminatecake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>just now the curtain’s folding<br/>it falls and lies to rest<br/>so selfish royal brother<br/>you loved your life to death<br/>your ways cannot continue<br/>you rule with hateful hands<br/>i called you towards this staircase and<br/>i caused your violent end</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact this was originally going to be called "Make Him Pay" but i figured someone else already did that.

You know what you need to do.

You have been working for this. All this time, out in the dreambubbles, hiding and fighting and training; it has all been for this moment.

The moment that you might call a showdown, a duel, a battle of wills.

The moment that you kill your brother.

A hand brushes your shoulder and you start, nearly clawing Jane’s eye out. “Sorry, dear, I am a touch on edge.” You manage a reassuring smile.

The Maid nods, her face drawn. “I was just… thinking… and I thought… maybe this isn’t the right thing to do.”

“It’s the _only_ thing to do, luv.”

She sighs and shakes her head. “No, see… I’ve been thinking about everything you told me about your species and everything he told me, and… this just doesn’t seem… _right_.” She places her hand back on your shoulder and looks at you intently. “Look, Calliope, I understand how life works. It’s my job to understand. But there was a time, a… a very bad time, when I understood our doom.”

You stare back at her and try to match her gravity. “Jane, I am not about to invert. I know what I’m doing. _It has to be done_.”

“Does it?”

“Yes.”

Jane presses her lips together and removes her hand. “Just be careful.”

Roxy comes up next, looking even weaker and more worn than Jane. “Hey, Callie.”

You smile. “Hey, Roxy.”

You both stand there for a heartbeat, just looking at each other, and then she throws her arms around your neck and buries her head in your shoulder. “Don’t,” she mumbles savagely. “You _need_ each other, you can’t just kill a part of yourself that easily, think of what happened when _he_ tried-“

“If you are going to attempt to dissuade me,” you murmur as gently as possible, “Jane already tried.”

 “ _Good_!” she snarls, pulling away and grabbing your face in her hands. “Good! At least someone else has some sense! Calliope, sweetie, I can’t just let you _do_ this.”

Your jaw clenches and you force yourself to focus on the hatred inside you, the anger and loathing, to ignore the little niggling seeds of doubt and-is that- _longing_?

“I have to do this.” You do your best to keep your voice steady. “He’s evil, abhorrent, everything I hate. I can’t let him kill any more.”

“No, no, no!” Roxy seems on the verge of tears, almost yelling at you in desperation. “He’s everything you’re _not_ , not everything you _hate_. He’s horrible because he has nothing to balance him; he needs _you_ , because you’re the balance! The thing on the other side of the scale, the, uh. The ballast.”

 You’re shaking your head and opening your mouth to speak, but she’s not letting you get a word in edgewise. “You shouldn’t hate or kill or hurt, you’re _ruining_ it, you’re going to doom us all and _there’s nothing I can do to stop you_!”

Jane’s words echo in your head, _But there was a time when I understood our doom,_ and you swiftly push them aside. “You’re hysterical,” you tell the Rogue firmly, and she looks ready to scream at you, but just pushes away and runs after Jane.

And now it’s only Dirk.

He looks the most haunted out of any of you, almost broken, and you remember how it happened, as clear and sharp as a shard of glass, and your hatred returns in full, so strong the bile rises in your throat and you nearly choke.

He doesn’t say anything, just looks at you and shakes his head slowly and walks after the girls.

You turn around, take a deep breath, look at the stone bed.

You know everyone will be waiting for you on the other side.

All the people you have looked up to your entire life.

It’s going to hurt.

You step onto the bed and hold the magnum to your head.

And pull the trigger.

_there’s a blinding red flash of pain behind your eyes and then it’s gone, everything is dark, but not for long because you can see it, you can see all of space and how it connects and the little threads of gold and silver and creation, you can feel the power rushing into every fiber of your body and filling you up, every atom and molecule is under your control and_

_you_

_gasp._

_it’s too much it’s just too much connectedness and  it’s all dark and void and blackness and you scream but it doesn’t help and now you control it completely the black and the light you wear it like a cloak and carry it out of the dark and_

_into_

_the_

_blinding_

light.

That’s the first thing you’re conscious of, the pure, blinding, white-blue _light_.

The second thing you’re aware of is the hush that seems to have fallen over the world.

Everyone that has been in the story, everyone that was written in the book and viewed on your computer screen, they’re all here, staring at you.

You look down at your body.

You are a Muse.

You look up and laugh delightedly and throw your arms into the air and say “Let’s kill that bastard!”

There’s a roar of approval from the crowd, except for the three at the front, who stare at you as if you are some strange person who they had never seen before.

A lump rises in your throat and you force it back down and look away, look towards Jake, with his blank, dead eyes, and your hatred rears its ugly head again.

He grins and climbs up next to you, holds his arms up for silence. “On three!” he calls out into the crowd and there’s another quick roar of bloodthirsty excitement and he holds a hand up again. “One! Two! _Three_!” and then they’re all screaming his name, _his_ name, the despicable three syllables, the very antithesis of your being…

And _he’s_ here.

You stare with revulsion on what he did to your body, on the grotesquely musclebound arms and savage features, the ever-changing cue balls in his eye sockets…

“You fucking _bastard_!” you yell at him. Jane is frantically waving at you from the crowd but you ignore her. “You putrid, disgusting, shit-eating, murderous filthhole!”

He’s _laughing_.

And in a voice that seems to shake the ground and rumble in your very bones, he says something, something that you can’t quite understand because the voice itself calls through your skin and past your ears, burrowing into some deeper place inside you that even you don’t quite understand, but you understand his meaning, and that is _it looks like we weren’t that different after all, “sister” dear._

A pair of arms wrap themselves firmly around you from behind and you hear a high-pitched voice drawing out its r’s like a purring cat as it says “You’re not being brave, Calliope.”

“I’m scared,” you murmur. “I’m scared and I’m doing it anyway.”

“But _doing_ it, that’s not the brave thing,” Nepeta says. “ _Not_ doing it, not beclaws you can’t, but beclaws you don’t have to, _that’s_ the brave thing.”

You don’t understand and you’re not sure if you want to.

“Rogue of Heart,” you state flatly, staring straight ahead, “stand aside.”

A claw traces your collarbone. “I could use my purrers-oh dear, I’m sorry, that pun was pawful. But I could use them to take your heart and give it back, I could change it and shape it and mold it until you do the right thing and you wouldn’t even notice, you’d think you were doing it of your own accord.”

“But you won’t, because it’s not the honourable thing to do.”

“You’re right,” she agrees, somewhat sadly. “I won’t.”

The arms are gone. He had just stood there the entire time, staring. _Probably getting off_ , you think viciously, although it most likely is the truth.

“Lord of Time,” you call, fighting to keep your voice steady. “I challenge you.”

And that voice, the terrible voice that seems to move planets, it comes again and with it comes the understanding, _why should I accept your challenge? I could just kill you again now, little brat. It would sure as hell be easier._

“Tell me,” and suddenly you’re confident this will work, “tell me, when was the last time you played a worthy opponent at chess?”

He is silent.

“Right.” You reach out with that new part of yourself, the part that can see all the little threads and atoms of space, and you give a little _pull_ and the planet around you starts to shrink, or maybe you get bigger, or maybe none of the above, maybe space is just slightly rearranging itself so that you hold Skaia in your hands.

It is about the same size as a chessboard, though globular, and you can see the carapaces all lined up for war, your friends lined up just the same.

“So,” you smile, “Derse or Prospit?”

He taps the ground beside the Black King and you nod. “Of course. And your pieces?”

He gestures to the three gathered in front of the Dersian forces; Gamzee, Kurloz, Meulin.

“That’s all?”

He shrugs.

They are all he needs.

You are starting to get a little nervous.

“Right. Well, that would leave me with white, so…”

He knows that you are stalling.

He knows you too well.

You deploy your pawns; arrange your knights, your witches, your rogues, your heirs. Concentrate on unity, there is strength in numbers. Focus on strategy. You know how he plays. You know how to counteract that.

This should be easy.

“The stakes,” you whisper and clear your throat. “The stakes,” you say, louder this time.” The winner gets to kill the other. Permanently.”

Jane is screaming something at you from the battlefield below, but you ignore her and wave her over towards Feferi. Life players are valuable; they need to stick together.

He grins at you.

You prod a pawn forwards.

The game is on.


	2. Chapter 2

You’re winning.

You _know_ you’re winning.

He has lost half his pawns. The Seer of Light sent a small squadron out to deal with the assassination of his Queen. His other pieces are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and power of yours.

And yet…

something seems off.

That clown _won’t bloody die_.

You consider sending your Life players into battle, perhaps they could use their powers to _make_ him die, but you shake off the idea. It would not be worth risking some of your most valuable pieces, you decide.

_Pieces?_ a part of your mind asks. _Not friends? Not even people?_

_Pieces_ , you think firmly, because to think otherwise would be to care about them, to not be able to take the risks that you will need to in order to win.

He won’t stop _grinning_.

_What do you know that I don’t?_ you want to ask him. _What is it that makes you smile like that?_

His Bard makes a move.

You curse under your breath and send reinforcements to protect your King.

Your Heir of Breath is taking pawns by the bucketload, sweeping them away with gusts of air, and your brother notices this. You have known for a while that John is one of your most useful pieces, but you had hoped that your brother would be dim enough to not suspect the dorky, awkward, cheerful kid as being your secret reserve.

A vain and stupid hope in retrospect, you reflect.

There’s a brief scuffle, and your Heir of Breath is heroically dead; dead fighting for a cause he believed in.

The voice booms out over the vast emptiness of space, rebounding across stars and snaking through clouds of dust and gas, _first blood is mine._

“I took many of your pawns before this.”

_You know they’re just cannon fodder. Replaceable .The real glory lies. In taking an actual piece._

You note that a small group of people are gathering around the fallen Heir and you wave them away. “Stop that. This is no time for grief.”

It is Roxy this time that starts to yell up at you, tears in her eyes. You push down the lump in your throat and shoo her off, make her help obscure the King.

That’s when you see her.

_Ah, fuck._

How could you have forgotten your brother’s most loyal helper, the troll in green, obviously brought from the past to assist in the present, plucked out of time willy-nilly?

The Handmaid is his ace in the hole.

The Handmaid is a dangerous piece.

You call a retreat and the Seer of Light looks up at you.

She brushes fingers with the Seer of Mind and whispers something into her ear.

Terezi closes her eyes and you know what she is doing, looking at the outcomes of all your decisions, glancing through the separate timelines, laying out a strategy bit by bit. Beside her, Rose is doing the same, flipping through the most fortuitous outcomes and shrewd decisions.

They come to at the same time and consult for a second, speaking in undertones and finally nodding.

You try to shoo them into position, to implement the strategy you are thinking of, but they refuse to move. They stand firm and begin issuing instructions to the other pieces, organizing the Knights and Heirs around the King, setting the Blood pieces up as backup, weaving intricate webs of cause and effect that you can scarcely see the bare bones of.

You look up and his grin is larger than ever.

“Pieces are not allowed to move on their own,” you say aloud. “Stop that.”

The Knight of Time flips you the bird, only to get a light smack upside the head from the Witch of Space.

Jane mouths _Pieces?_ up to you and you shake your head, hissing in irritation.

He chuckles softly.

“What do you _know_?!” you finally yell, throwing your hands to the heavens. “Why are you grinning?!”

_I might have killed you too soon. You have. Potential._

“Fuck you!” You glance down at the battle once again raging below; with some satisfaction you note that he is nearly out of pawns. “I have no goddamned ‘potential,’ you bastard, I am _nothing_ like you. _Nothing_!”

The Witch of Space is doing something below, conferring with the Rogue of Heart. She glances up at you, makes a quick gesture, and suddenly you’re back down on the battlefield, among the screams and blood and fighting.

“What are you doing?” you sputter, spinning around in surprise. “I need to be up there!”

Jade cocks her head to one side and smiles gently. “You need help.”

“No, I don’t!”

“You really do. Woof!” She goes bright red and scuttles off in embarrassment, rejoining the battle.

Nepeta grins at you and takes your hand. “Hello again, Calliope!”

“I need to get back up there. Now!”

Her eyes widen slightly. “You’re even worse than we thought.”

“What?”

She reaches out her other hand to stroke the side of your face. “I knew this might happen. You’re losing yourself. Without him to balance you, you became small and weak, but now… You trained yourself to hate and kill and now your hatred is taking over. Fur better or fur worse, you need to make peace with yourself, with _him_.”

You look around; the Witch of Life is trying to heal John while everyone else streams around them, running to and fro across the checkerboard ground. You see the Prince of Hope desperately battling with the Prince of Rage ( _that idiot, you can’t even try to take him on singlehandedly, even if you’re already dead_ ). Then you see it-the checkmate party, consisting of the most powerful players in the game, sneaking up towards his King.

You give Nepeta a bitter smile. “No time to declare a truce now, dearie, not when we have almost checkmated him.”

“No-“

But you’re already gone, gone, gone, back up into the void.

The checkmate force has already begun their attack and now the rest of the pieces have rushed into battle, no longer sneaking around or drawing his attention elsewhere. A small force is staying behind to protect your own King, but otherwise everyone has thrown themselves headlong into the fray.

You smile at him. “Checkmate.”

An unprototyped King is easy to defeat. With the power of over thirty players, one who has the powers of a First Guardian, he does not stand a chance.

It is over in three minutes and there is nothing your brother can do about it.

You are both back on Skaia in an instant, the ragged troops ( _pieces_ ) cheering tiredly, but cheering nonetheless.

Jane and Roxy rush toward you, mouths open for another lecture, but you quickly twist a thread of space and send them back into the crowd. You turn to your brother, the only person you have ever hated, and smile calmly at him. “Have you learned to lose gracefully yet?”

_Of course not._

“The rules of our challenge state that I get to kill you now.”

He is silent, seething with rage, looking for a loophole. Sometimes, though, the most simply-phrased contracts are also the ones with no way through.

_Get on with it._

You stride up to him and draw your gun, push him to his knees and place it at his temple. The gun loaded with that special bullet, the one you know will kill even him.

Permanently.

“Bye,” you whisper.

Your hand shakes.

You take a deep breath.

You stare at the trigger, willing you finger to tighten.

Your eyes feel wet.

_Fucking do it already._

“I… I can’t.”

You feel someone hugging you from behind again. “Purrfect, Calliope. You’re starting to get it.”

“I need to… I… please…”

“Just let it go,” she whispers in your ear. Her hand is on the gun, slowly and gently pushing it down. “You furgive him, don’t you?”

“I…”

“It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.”

Your breathing is heavy and fast, like you’re about to start sobbing, but the burning behind your eyes refuses to be released. Shivers wrack your body and you gulp down the sobs as they come up, slowly releasing the gun, finger by finger.

_Pansy-assed bitch._

“You shut up,” Nepeta calmly tells your brother. “You need her as much as she needs you.”

_I don’t need anyone._

“You need her,” she repeats.

_If she’s not going to kill me. Then I should kill her._

“Come on, Calliope,” she purrs. “It’s time to let go. Just furgive him. It’s easy…”

“No…” Your hand tightens on the gun and you go rigid in her arms. “ _No_!”

_Bang!_

The recoil nearly knocks you and Nepeta both to the ground, despite your years of using the magnum. Red trickles from the hole in his head and he slowly, slowly slumps over, finally falling on his side.

You squeeze your eyes shut. Somehow, you can’t stand the sight of his body lying there, almost small and pitiful in death.

Slowly, you open them again to see almost everyone standing around the body.

Jane looks up. “Well. _Fuck._ ”

Dave tilts his head to the side, considering the situation. “You really fucked it up _this_ time, skull-girl. This is, like, DEFCON level neon red. Even as we speak, new levels of ‘oh, fuck’ are being invented just to describe this situation. The human language doesn’t have the adjectives to describe the sheer levels of deep shit we’re in now.”

There’s a wrench at your heart and you can almost _feel_ the last of his life draining away.

“What’s wrong?” John calls from the back. “Weren’t we _supposed_ to kill him?”

“John!” Jade shrieks and throws herself on him. “I thought you were dead!”

“We’re in deeper shit than a dog park in Brooklyn.”

“Dave, that doesn’t make any sense.”

“Deeper shit than a whale’s toilet.”

“What the hell? What was going through your ridiculous, mush-filled alien thinkpan that you would think doing _this_ was a good idea? Is your head entirely filled with mush?”

You’re starting to feel a little sick.

“Maybe she just did it for the _halibut_!”

There’s a brief silence.

“Fef, that was awful.”

“Eridan! Be nice!”

“I am sorry, but I don’t particularly think that this is an appropriate time for joking around.”

“It’s okay, Kanaya, she can’t really help it…”

“Deeper shit than an entire Olympic swimming pool filled with that pun.”

You drop to your knees.

“Calliope, you okay, girl?”

“She just _killed_ someone, Roxy; no way she’s going to be okay…”

“Deeper shit than-“

“Dave, shut _up_!”

“Wow, Harley, calm those tits.”

“I cannot even fucking _believe_ how completely idiotic that was! How do you survive with your substandard thinking patterns? How can you resist the urge to commit suicide by shoving burning daggers down your waste chute and screaming ‘ _I’m a goddamned idiotic waste of space of a life-form with no skills to speak of and no ability to see the fucking consequences of my actions_ ’?”

Oh God.

You killed part of yourself.

“Calliope, answer me, please!”

You

“Callie?”

You killed

“Whoa, is that girl okay?”

“Hey, ghost girl!”

You killed him.

You drag yourself over to the body.

“Sorry,” you mumble.

“Is she okay?”

“Is anyone here a Life player?”

“She’s fading on us!”

“Jane, help me get her back!”

You manage to clumsily press your lips to his forehead before it all goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a few things i'd like to say here:  
> 1\. this is completely and utterly unedited (despite chapter 2 taking a ridiculous amount of time to write-what was it, three or four hours?), so i would appreciate it if you could point out any mistakes i made.  
> 2\. the lyrics in the summary are from "posed to death" by the faint. i highly reccomend them.  
> 3\. i am so fucking sorry for that fish pun.


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